Haptics is a tactile and force feedback technology that takes advantage of a user's sense of touch by applying haptic feedback effects (i.e., “haptic effects”), such as forces, vibrations, and motions, to the user. Devices, such as mobile devices, touchscreen devices (also identified as “touchscreens”), and personal computers, can be configured to generate haptic effects. In general, calls to embedded hardware capable of generating haptic effects (such as actuators) can be programmed within an operating system (“OS”) of the device. These calls specify which haptic effect to play. For example, when a user interacts with the device using, for example, a button, touchscreen, lever, joystick, wheel, or some other control, the OS of the device can send a play command through control circuitry to the embedded hardware. The embedded hardware then produces the appropriate haptic effect.
A haptic effect can be generated by combining two or more periodic haptic signals, or by pre-processing a received signal in order to trigger a haptic effect in real-time. However, such haptic effects can be perceived as “synthetic” or “artificial,” due to the nature of how the haptic effects are generated.